Wednesday, September 30, 2009

yesterday i discovered a travel size bottle of mouthwash in my bathroom that expired in 1998! why the fuck do i have that? if that shit EXPIRED in 1998, who knows how long i had it around before that. i don't even know how many times i've moved since 98, but that little vintage mouthwash bottle has been right there with me the whole time, god bless it! needless to say, i drank it. just kidding. apparently drinking hand sanitizer is less harmful than drinking mouthwash. not sure what the buzz is like.

of bob's 3 "christian period" albums, most people can agree that slow train coming is the best. a lot of bob fans even rank it as among their favorites of his whole discography. shot of love is also considered by many to be decent or at least half-decent (i'd go as far as half-awesome). but what about saved? where slow train coming exhibits some of the spite and anger that had been missing from bob's music since blood on the tracks and shot of love at least rocks in a "lean and mean" sort of way, saved just kinda sits in the middle there, ignored. more than any other dylan album (even self portrait), saved seems to be the album that most fans want to pretend doesn't exist. or at least write off completely as a throw-away testament to bob's early 80s identity crisis. the thing is, saved IS a good album. taken for what it is (which is straight up gospel music), saved is a beautiful and often surprisingly understated album featuring some of bob's most gorgeous ballads (covenant woman, what can i do for you?) and heart-felt delivery (pressing on). anyway, worth checking out.

Monday, September 28, 2009

so, thanks to the rickshaw theatre's concrete box echo-chamber ambience, last saturday afternoon's distort fest accidently invented the new genre of "shoegaze-crust". only it wasn't nearly as interesting as that may sound. local heros fear of tomorrow were really the only band that did it for me. i was too drunk by the time return headliners hellshock took the stage to properly appreciate them. but i've seen them before, so no biggie. reasonably crusty.

it was a beautiful day spent drinking in a parking lot in chinatown with periodic and increasingly wobbly trips into the concrete crust box. fun times, indeed.i was completely passed out by 11pm, that's what drinking in the middle of the day can do to you.

by the time i ventured out on sunday night to see san francisco's wooden shjips at the anza club, i felt like a blob of meat with ears. maybe i'd already blown my load for the evening by watching a rerun of america's funniest home videos, but wooden shjips were booooooring. maybe it's just that unnecessary J in there, i don't know. i never thought i'd diss a band for being too jammy, but here goes: too jammy. i guess the extra J stands for jammy. i even tried to enhance the experience by pseudo-spontaneously (and stupidly) eating some mushrooms in the bathroom beforehand, which had the undesired effect of making ordinary social interactions completely terrifying. the icing on the cake for me was walking into the bathroom where this sweaty long-haired kid kind of got in my face and said "hey man, me and my friends are just trying to party alright?" to which i replied "ok. i'm just trying to piss.". he disappeared into a stall with about 4 other pairs of ankle boots and a symphony of cartoonish sniffling and snorting ensued. i peaced immediately after. completely psyched out. i took the long way home on my bike and then stared at a painting in the hallway of my building for about 40 minutes.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

if i had a "stoner rock" band i'd call it YAWN.that's exactly what i did when i saw OM on friday. i mean, i love sleep (the band and the activity), but i just can't really get behind anything those dudes are doing these days. om is seriously boring (and high on fire is for skids. like my girl skeeter who thinks matt pike is "hot"). where sleep put out jerusalem/dopesmoker that's just one amazing super long super slow song, om just has a bunch of super long super slow songs that all sound exactly the same. if i want to hear some dudes getting spiritual about weed and the bass i'll listen to some fucking reggae.anyway, the show sucked, not my thing, bla bla bla...the night was saved when i went upstairs for some karaoke and somehow wound up in narnia. instead of the usual karaoke lounge, there were a bunch of signs with arrows pointing the way to this huge room with mirrored pillars and a crowd of people dancing in a circle around somebody singing. at one point there was a dude full on break dancing! my mind was blown. i never knew that room existed and i suspect that if i ever went looking for it again i would only find a blank wall and possibly a cackling old gypsy woman.

but none of that matters, because on saturday i saw the motherfucking PET SHOP BOYS. all i can say is that it was amazing and that i was tripping balls. i've never been around that many gay men in my entire life and i loved every second of it. the bathroom was wild. probably 97% of the music was pre-recorded and i'm pretty sure neil tennant had autotune on his voice the whole time, but no big whoop. my only beef was that they didn't play domino dancing or love comes quickly...

easily in my top 10 favorite songs of all time.

in other news: local heart-throbs scoundrels have just released their self-titled debut album. formed from the ashes of former shindig winners (and shindig curse victims) romance, scoundrels play pure pop for lovestruck cavemen. check them out on myspace, be their friend, get them to send you their album, get them to play a fucking show...

Monday, September 21, 2009

i must admit that i'd never really checked flipper out until fairly recently. i remember hearing a lot about them as a kid, but i'm sure that if i'd heard them back then i would have dismissed them as stupid and shitty. well, the older you get, the stupider and shittier you get, so... yay for flipper! i saw pink mountaintops play "sex bomb" outside at the victory square block party a few years ago with my current upstairs neighbor alex on vocals, at that point my opinion of flipper was merely "dumb and crappy". my opinion is now "dumb and crappy, but good".speaking of pink mountaintops, you should buy the new album outside love, because it's good. but you already knew that, because you already have it.

Monday, September 14, 2009

the last time we played in calgary, i overheard one bouncer (sorry, "cooler") at the venue talking to another staff member about the philosophy of his job starting with the line "as swayze says, "if someone gets in your face, be nice..." followed by the rest of it. i guess roadhouse was a pretty big deal for him. and you know what? that dude was super nice and mellow. a lot of bouncers can be dicks and could learn a lot from patrick swayze's zen buddhist approach to "cooling a room".

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

great australian "vampire" film from 1979, worth checking out. it's got something for everyone: vampire cults, descendants of countess elizabeth bathory, "blood cows", you name it... good stuff!speaking of bathory, the historical elizabeth bathory was totally fucked up. seriously, read up on that shit. she supposedly tortured and killed as many as 600 young girls, often literally bathing in their blood. it's good for the hair and skin, apparently.

bathory is also the name of the greatest fucking band to ever haunt the moonlit graveyards of scandinavia. well, actually it was really just one teenage dude and his dad, but they fucking KILLED it in the early 80's. black metal bands to this day are basically just straight up ripping off the first couple bathory albums.